fortress of Pucinum[1], famous for its wines, the Gulf of Tergeste[2], and the colony of that name, thirty-three miles from Aquileia. Six miles beyond this place lies the river Formio[3], 189 miles distant from Ravenna, the ancient boundary[4] of enlarged Italy, and now the frontier of Istria. That this region takes its name from the river Ister which flows from the Danube, also called the Ister, into the Adriatic opposite the mouth of the Padus, and that the sea which lies between them is rendered fresh by their waters running from opposite directions, has been erroneously asserted by many, and among them by Nepos even, who dwelt upon the banks of the Padus. For it is the fact that no river which runs from the Danube discharges itself into the Adriatic. They have been misled, I think, by the circumstance that the ship Argo came down some river into the Adriatic sea, not far from Tergeste; but what river that was is now unknown. The most careful writers say that the ship was carried across the Alps on men's shoulders, having passed along the Ister, then along the Savus, and so from Nauportus[5], which place, lying between Æmona[6] and the Alps, from that circumstance derives its name.
5 He alludes to an old tradition that the Argonauts sailed into the
Ister or Danube, and then into the Save, till they came to the spot where
the modern town of Upper Laybach stands, and that here they built
Nauportus, after which they carried their ship across the mountains on
men's shoulders into the Adriatic. He intends to suggest therefore that
the place had its name from the Greek ναςῡ "a ship" and πορθμὁς "a
passage."
- ↑ Castel Duino stands on its site. It will be found again mentioned in B. xiv. C. 8, for the excellence of its wines.
- ↑ Now the Gulf of Trieste. Tergeste was previously an insignificant place, but made a Roman colony by Vespasian. The modern city of Trieste occupies its site.
- ↑ Most probably the modern Risano. Cluver and D'Anville are of that opinion, but Walckenaer thinks that it was a small stream near Muja Vecchia; which seems however to be too near Trieste.
- ↑ In the time of Augustus, and before Istria was added as a province to Italy.
- ↑ 5
- ↑ The modern town of Laybach stands on its site. It is situate on the Save, and on the road from Aquileia to Celeia. The Roman remains prove that the ancient city exceeded the modern one in magnitude. According to tradition it was founded by the Argonauts. It subsequently became a Roman colony, with the title of Julia Augusta. It is again mentioned in C. 28.
